As a responsible homeowner, you want to ensure that your home is well-prepped for the coming cold months. You will want to weatherproof everything, including starting up the furnace, clearing the chimneys of all dirt and debris, and insulating your plumbing among other essential winter preparations.
This is also the time to have a keen look at your dryer vents. As usual, clear vents are vital if you desire to have lint-free drying of your clothes. But in addition to this, there are other benefits that come with cleaning your dryer vents.
Remember, the cold usually associated with winter is not normal and as such, they can take a huge toll on your dryers, and this may lead to additional problems that may end up costing you not just time, but also money. In this article, we explore why cleaning your dryer vents during winter is such a good idea, and why you should never get into the winters with dirty vents.
Clean Dryer Vents for Overall Home Safety
One of the major reasons for dryer vent cleaning is getting the most from your dryer. But in addition to this, clean dryer vents play a vital role in averting fires at home. It is estimated that nearly 15000 structures fires are recorded every year as a result of defective dryers.
More than seventy percent of these fires, however, are attributed to clogged dryer vents. With a dirty dryer vent, there will always be a large amount of lint within the vents, and since lint is highly flammable, just a single spark is needed to start a dryer fire that could spread widely and wildly throughout the home.
But clogged dryer vents are not only prone to starting home fires. They also have the potential of stopping poisonous gases from leaving the home. A gas like carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, and very dangerous when inhaled in closed quarters.
Whenever the dryer vent is clogged, there are very high chances of it releasing this deadly, which, instead of getting released to the environment, will keep circulating in the rooms due to the clogged vents. Therefore, to avoid these from happening, the best thing to do is simply ensure that the vents are professionally cleaned not just at winter times alone, but throughout the whole year for air quality.
Cleaning Dryer Vents Will Save You a lot of Money
Cleaning your dryer vents also comes with the potential of protecting your wallet in a number of ways. To begin with, dirty vents will compromise the efficiency of your machine. With an efficient dryer, the machine will end up consuming more than normal power, leaving you with inflated power bills at the end of the month.
Secondly, since dirty vents will make the machine more inefficient, there will be increased risks of a breakdown which will necessitate the need to call for dryer repair services which will end up costing you more money. With such, a subtle way to avoid such expenses is to simply ensure proper dryer duct cleaning Montreal before every winter so that you have peace of mind and also get to protect your wallet.
Protect Your Home From Unwanted Guests
One of the problems you will face with lint build-up in your dryer’s ventilation system is that the duct hood may fail to close properly. When this happens, it creates a very good environment for rodents and all manner of insects to make it a home.
In this way, these rodents and insects will then find it easy to gain access into your home, where their presence can lead to a lot of discomfort to the family members and damage to your household items.
Instead of letting this happen so that you have compounded problems, including calling in rodent experts to come and safely get rid of the unwanted guests from your home, the easiest thing to do is ensure proper and timely dryer duct cleaning before winter.
Protects Your Family Members From Various Allergens
The growth of allergens within the home environment is always a good recipe for various structural damages as well as various health complications to certain family members. As such, it is always recommended that you get rid of environments or places within the home that may propagate the growth or the spread of allergens.
These usually include moist places, though dryer vents may also become leaky and promote the growth of allergens and other pollutants that may harm the occupants of the home. The dryer vent should be free from moisture at all times. Whenever you notice that your clothes are still dumped after a full cycle in the dryer, then this may be a subtle indication that your vents are not properly expelling the water from the clothes.
It is also an indication that your vents will not be completely dry, hence, creating the right environment for the growth and spread of allergens. When the lint mixes with the moisture in the vent, in addition to promoting the growth of allergens, it is also likely to clog the system. To avoid this, the best remedy is to ensure proper dryer vent cleaning.
Your Clothes Will Dryer Faster
With all the cold, rain, and humidity during the winter months, these are never the best times to do a lot of laundries because clothes will take typically long to dry. Your problems could be compounded at this time if you happen to have a dryer that is not in a proper working condition. When the dryer vents are dirty, your clothes will take slightly longer to dry.
With such a dryer, there will be hot moist air caught inside the dryer drum. This will not only lengthen the drying time for your clothes but also impact the system negatively, making it prone to damages and reducing its lifespan.